More than 120 representatives of Governments, international organisations, civil society and the private sector gathered this week for the UN’s long-term finance wrap-up meeting in Incheon, South Korea.

Hopes were that discussions would generate specific recommendations for Ministers to consider when they meet in Warsaw in November.

On June 13th, 2013, Director of the Caucasus Nature Fund (CNF), Mr. David Morrison, Chairman of the Agency of Protected Areas (APA), Mr. Rati Japaridze, , and the In-Country Coordinator of U.S.

The memorandum aims to improve coordination of the capacity building work of USDOI and the work carried out by APA and CNF and to strengthen cooperation between the three organizations in the technical and design aspects of infrastructure refurbishment and development projects.

We are very pleased to announce that TBC Bank is our latest private sector partner. TBC, one of Georgia’s largest banks, has agreed to work in cooperation with CNF and the Agency of Protected Areas and other stakeholders to upgrade the riding and trekking trail connecting the spectacular mountain regions of Tusheti and Khevsureti.

Along the northwestern Andean foothills and coastal plains of Ecuador, lush rain forest carpets the landscape as far as the eye can see. The cackles of great green macaws can be heard overhead, while on the ground frogs hidden from view call out. In this enchanted corner of the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena biodiversity hotspot, a quiet revolution is taking place, bridging conservation and development.

The “nexus” between water, food and energy is one of the most fundamental relationships and challenges for society.The importance of this nexus was re-emphasised at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012.

...Wetlands are a fundamental part of local and global water cycles and are at the heart of this nexus. We also expect wetlands to be key to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the future Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)...

...However, the full value of water and wetlands needs to be recognised and integrated into decision- making in order to meet our future social, economic and environmental needs. Using the maintenance and enhancement of the benefits of water and wetlands is, therefore, a key element in a transition to a green economy.

TEEB - THe Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity - has prodcued some wonderful itterature over recent years. This July they've produced a report focusing on wetlands, and seems to suggest that the most important ecosystem when it comes to that interaction between Nature and the Economy is wetlands indeed. This is not only due to the number of ecosystem services they provide to so many aspects of the human Economy - water, energy, agriculture - but also because they are so threatened in so many regions around the world.

The report is reponding to the priorisation of wetlands under the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012, and the resulting documents "The Future We Want". The report goes on to suggest wetlands will also bea big part of the Millenium Development Goals too.

It's great to see this kind of emphasis given to wetlands. TEEB say they are more valuable than other ecosystems.

The report goes on to talk about how to measure and assess wetlands, improve decision-making around wetlands and development/infrastrucutre impacting wetlands, and how to manage wetlands better.

So I think this is good. We have lots of good ways to conserve, preserve, and restore wetalnds. It seems to be a high-return venture - you can create or recreate wetalnds in a number of locations big and small, and almost all bioshere and region around the world has some place for wetland ecosystems. They've traditionally been one of the most marginalised ecosystems due to public perception, conflict with agriculture and other coastal prioririties. But there have also been some notable conservation successes at the local, regional and programatic levels.

So if we could prioritise wetlands like this TEEB report promotes, there's also a good change we could make it work.

In a recent interview, the Opposition environment spokesperson Greg Hunt promised to reverse biodiversity decline in five years if the Coalition wins the forthcoming election.Is this goal achievable…

Is it possible to continue to clear land, but also stop biodiversity decline? In theory, perhaps. This is the apparent promise of biodiversity offsetting, an increasingly popular policy approach. But are our current offset policies really designed to halt declines? We argue the answer is no.

This is a great peice detailing the careful distinction between Offsetting by ecosystem preservation versus ecosystem restoration/creation.

They're talking about No Net Loss which is an important policy to have - it's instrumental to have any hope in an effective offset policy that the ultimate goal is to keep what we have right now and lot loose any more.

But it's not as simple as it sounds. As they say: "No Net Loss of what"??

They argue that if your offset is simply preserving ecosystems that might be lost, this isn't really No Net Loss.

There are lots of other ways to think about No Net Loss too - Loss of vegetation cover? Loss of species diversity? Loss of ecosystem area in a watershed? A river basin? In a Region? In a country?

And even when we know what we don't want to loose, how do we work out if we should use preservation or restoration or recreation? Here, these authors argue that preservation policies erode the no net loss policy and I can see their point.

But there are some very important ecosystems and natural areas that badly need proper preservation to survive, and they just aren't getting it through the normal channels.

Also, there are some very challenging restoration projects that don't achieve proper conservaiton because the context they are working in is so challenging - we just don't know everything about conservation and ecology to truly create or restore everything. Sometimes it's better to keep what you had, as replacing isn't possible.

We need to truly understand what we mean by No Net Loss - but the preservation/restoration/creation debate needs to happen. And we need detailed understanding such as presented here to make this happen.

It's complicated though, and anyone that thinks they have one single perfect answer, probably doesn't get it.

Over 300 biodiversity expects and economists from 120 countries representing government, non-governmental organisations and academia gathered in Norway from 27th to the 31st May for the Trondheim Biodiversity Conference. Seventh in the series of esteemed conferences, spanning 20 years, the Trondheim Conferences on Biodiversity provide a highly valuable fora for dialogue amongst key stakeholders on issues related to the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Two years ago, Indonesia's Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve was on the rocks after the country’s Ministry of Forestry turned more than half of its 80,000 hectares over to palm oil interests – an act that prevented it from becoming the first carbon project to generate credits under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) for saving endangered rainforest and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). By the end of last year, however, the project had been saved .... Last week, independent auditor SCS Global Services confirmed that the project had, in fact, prevented the emission of roughly 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the year ending in July, 2010, meaning it can now sell 2,181,352 Verified Carbon Units (VCUs) from that period. Over the course of its 30-year life, the project aims to reduce emissions by 119 million tons.

It might have taken a while, and had a few wobbles along the way, but this is none the less an exciting achievement. REDD is a great theory, and a great idea to tie economic benefit to conserving nature. It's even more exciting as it's theoretical way to direct some of the economic resources of 'developed' countries to developing and under-developed countries. This theoretically makes some headway in the frustrating imbalance where many of the world's biodiversity is located in countries and regions with little finance to conserve it.

Of course, REDD is not a new concept, and there have been many who have criticized it - both in theory and practice. This success doesn't undo these concerns and the length of time we've had to wait to see success stories like this. And a singular example such as this one doesn't mean the whole envisioned REDD 'market' is about to thrive.

But once we've found an option to put some economically-driven support to nature conservation in a way that has some success, it's a sign that there is optimism to be had. We might be able to make REDD the answer we want it to be?

In 2010, twenty nine Environmental Funds from around the globe provided great contribution to the Tool Kit by sharing their best material in this online platform – a total of about 200 documents organized in nine categories. This was a great start to achieve the goal of helping to guide the creation and start-up of new Funds, promote best practices for existing Funds and increase the efficiency and effectiveness to secure, and expend, reliable funding streams for biodiversity conservation.

In bringing together the views of a number of initiatives tracking REDD+ finance, this series has highlighted why there isn’t a single aggregate figure for global REDD+ finance flowing. Despite this, we are increasingly able to assess where finance is coming from, how it flows through different channels and funds to recipient countries and eventually to REDD+ projects and activities on the ground. But knowledge remains incomplete and we are still faced with challenges and gaps that make it difficult to make comprehensive and conclusive remarks about the state of REDD+ finance.

Fishing in the developing tropics looks very different from fishing in the United States. It’s easy to forget that millions of people around the world rely on wild fish for their daily protein and survival, rather than being able to purchase it from a grocery store. This is the case in the countries where EDF will work in partnership with Rare and University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) on our Fish Forever project. Fish Forever will focus on work with communities in the developing tropics to reduce overfishing and implement new guidelines that will allow fisheries to recover and more consistently provide the nutrition that so many depend upon.

The CFA hosted a webinar on May 29th on the mobilization of additional resources for Conservation Trust Funds. Presenter Scott Lampman (USAID) introduced the theme by informing that the mobilization of additional resources can be presented and interpreted in different ways. Scott is interested in how CTFs monitor and report leverage, and how a better story can be told collectively about raising additional resources.

Countryside charity CPRE urges caution about the proposed biodiversity offsetting scheme if is not to become another green light to developers.

The Government is expected to publish a green paper on biodiversity offsetting today (25 July). The scheme could mean that developments would get the go-ahead if they provide biodiversity offsets for the habitat that was damaged or destroyed. CPRE is concerned that the scheme has the potential to have a negative impact overall on the landscape and habitats.

Neil Sinden, CPRE’s Policy and Campaigns Director, says: "Biodiversity offsetting will be unacceptable if it is used to lower the bar in terms of protection for important sites and make it easier for developers to push through damaging schemes. Fundamentally, if offsetting is to happen, it should be as a last resort.

REDD – reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation – would seem to be a mitigation strategy that perfectly matches Africa’s needs.

Deforestation and agriculture are responsible for a significant part of Africa’s greenhouse gas emissions – though the continent is by no means a leading contributor to global warming. Conserving and even extending Africa’s tree cover – the Congo Basin contains the second-largest rainforest in the world – would both lower emissions and absorb atmospheric carbon.

Last year at the Rio+ 20 Sustainable Development Conference, the Natural Capital Declaration (NCD) was launched and hailed as one of the most promising initiatives of the conference. Now, almost a year later, the NCD marks the start of Phase II which is explained in detail in the NCD Roadmap. Basically, Phase II is the implementation of the Declaration's four commitments through the process laid out in the Roadmap.

The NCD is a global project that seeks to integrate natural capital-the ecological goods and services the Earth provides that yields direct and indirect benefits, like water and timber-into financial accounting, disclosure and reporting. In doing so, the Declaration believes it will create a broader understanding of natural capital risks in financial markets. The NCD has been endorsed by investors, insurance firms and banks. A total of 41 CEOs from these financial institutions have signed the document.

I like it where it says "creates a broader understanding" - a goal that is worthy and more achieveable. Although, the cynics amounst us will reply that there is indeed the understand required at the levels required; it's the political and corporate will that we're waiting for.

But I think that the investment sector that the Natural Capital Declaration is focused on, may hold the key to real changes to the way ecosystems are dealt with in development and conservation.

Here, Kelli Barett notes that the NCD Roadmap (which outlines the upcoming implementation) does recognise that the hard part is getting the recognition of ecosystem values into the investment tools of the finance sector.

It's both nice to see the difficulties not sugar-coated, but also some big figures internationally coming up with ways to make progress in this areana. NCD joins a numbe of intiatives growing around the world - to me it's a sign that there is a critical mass being reached and it may be difficult, but maybe we're getting closer.

With US$ 600,000 in new funding from the German government, the joint dialogue series will expand to bring together international experts over the next three years to tackle the issue of ensuring REDD+ benefits reach the rural poor.

A few weeks ago, Fauna & Flora International (FFI) held an internal workshop in Cambridge on the controversial topic of biodiversity offsetting. Joe Bull, a Phd candidate studying offsets in Uzbekistan with part funding from FFI, presented at the workshop and shares about the experience.

On 1 January 2013 the Himalayan country of Nepal became the Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) grouping at the United Nations climate change negotiations. Its representative, Mr. Prakash Mathema, Chief of Climate Change Management Division at Nepal’s Ministry of Science, Technology & Environment, underlined in his opening statement at the recent UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) sessions in Bonn:

“As the world’s most vulnerable, we have the moral right to claim that all the countries must take immediate and urgent climate action” (Mathema 2013). The Least Developed Countries have been urging progress in the negotiations, as the effects are already being seen in an increased number of droughts, severe storms, and floods. These events are raising the intensity, frequency and magnitude of climate change impacts, thus worsening the day to day quality of life of already vulnerable and impoverished populations

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